“The Frames of Your Belonging”

I love this phrase set within John O’Donohue’s larger blessing. “May you listen to your longing to be free/May the frames of your belonging be generous enough for your dreams.” I can identify with the longing to be free and I know both the sense of security and the desolation that come with choosing a frame too small for my dreams. I know there are endless worthy frames that are not for me.

I know the temptation to hold onto one frame, or several, even when I sense another awaits me. What if the new frame feels too big? What if its edges create separation between me and those I drew strength from in another setting? What if I’m seen stepping into the wrong frame? What if I look foolish, or lazy, or less than able, in that new space? What if the old one is taken away and I am left, for some indeterminate time, feeling frameless? What if it renders me invisible?

We can of course, never find ourselves outside the fundamental frame of our belovedness.

Still,

I’m just putting it out there
In case
your hand is poised to accept
the shimmering shape
held out to you
for this moment
for this dream
for this call
and you are afraid.

Somewhere
there are others
who know what is needed.

Perhaps unmet
they are walking around
each day
carrying hope
wordless as a bird’s blue egg;
gifted lately or long ago,
with the thin, silvered edge of risking,
they are holding you, nameless but known,
breathing a blessing
as you feel
the uncertain heft in your palms.

Quotations from For Belonging by John O’Donohue from his collection To Bless the Space Between Us (44).